


Ocean-Dust

by perbe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, everything goes swell until everything isn't, it's a load of introspective angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 23:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1918083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perbe/pseuds/perbe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts off swell because James is frozen in place, and Lily sashays over to him, her sundress flaring in the wind and says, well, you didn’t find it so hard to kiss me at Hogwarts, now did you? And James points out that they’re in front of Lily’s house and both her parents and maybe her annoying sister are watching and Lily says, well spotted, Potter, no wonder why they toss you after the snitch. James says, I’m a chaser and Lily smirks at him wickedly and replies, yes, your point is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ocean-Dust

**Author's Note:**

> there’s no more wind to be found in the sails  
> hands full of fallen stars and comet tails  
> ...  
> i'll make an hourglass from my fingers

It starts off swell because James asks Lily if she wants to visit him over the summer and she says no, why don’t you visit me instead, Dad has this old sailboat we used to take on the old river in Cokeworth until it got too dirty, but we can always take it out to sea. So a week into July, James turns up in Surrey with a bouquet of singing flowers from the garden, a slightly purple ear from Mrs. Potter for his mad dash in the backyard during which he assaulted his mother’s favorite bush (the one with lovely white singing flowers), and a fag he steals from Sirius’s bedroom, for luck. He crumples the fag between his fingertips as he waits for someone to answer the door, the bouquet tucked under his arm. The tobacco comes out and stains his palm but he can’t bring himself to stop. Then Lily’s out the door in a flurry of promises to be careful and he catches a glimpse of Mr. Evans, who has Lily’s green eyes, and who glares at him as if saying, I may not know much about you but I know that my daughter’s too good for you. James swallows. Lily rolls her eyes between each repeated promise, pulling the brim of her hat down so that only James can see.

 

It starts off swell because James is frozen in place, and Lily sashays over to him, her sundress flaring in the wind and says, well, you didn’t find it so hard to kiss me at Hogwarts, now did you? And James points out that they’re in front of Lily’s house and both her parents and maybe her annoying sister are watching and Lily says, well spotted, Potter, no wonder why they toss you after the snitch. James says, I’m a chaser and Lily smirks at him wickedly and replies, yes, your point is? Then they kiss and some part of him thinks, gross saliva, gleefully and the singing flowers get slightly smushed between them but Lily says they’re wonderful anyway and ties a sprig around her wrist and they apparate to a cave by the ocean with the sailboat floating behind them and their fingers woven into a basket, their pulses nestled between the strands.

 

Take your shoes off, Lily tells James. Each button she undoes on her sundress is their secret to keep. So is her laugh when he asks her why and so is the way she wiggles her toes around on the moss-covered floor. He does as she asks and asks her for a dance. The flowers, crumpled but still mostly in tune, sing of selkies sprinking ocean-dust between the seams of their human lovers’ coats. Lily’s fingers pause on the last button of her dress, at the small of her back. She knows the song and she sings along mostly off tune as she pulls him along, slipping and sliding but mostly upright through the mossy cave. They stumble along to the fading refrain with their hands gripping at the cave walls, breathless, Lily’s mostly undone dress swinging about her hips.

 

I’m going to snog you senseless, James says, his lips trailing past her cheekbones and the spaces behind her ears and settling at the hollow between her collarbones, those two wings, and Lily laughs and rests her lips on his forehead and asks if he really wants to go sailing, now dipping her thumbs into the back of his swimming trunks, now pulling at the fabric lightly. Oh I’m sure, James says, and doesn’t sound like it but they go anyway because they’re drunk on the sort of laughter that’s only to be had in damp mossy caves along hidden shoals when you’re not sure if you’re in love but you’d really like to be with the girl who has freckles on her feet and tobacco smudges on her hands—she caught them from you—and she uses those hands to let her sundress fall to the floor.

 

It starts off swell. The beach is empty. They levitate the sailboat along and watch its shadow swimming over the sand. The morning air feels like kisses. The sun blinks from behind a cloud, sleepily. The pulse from before is nestled between them again; Lily has this cream bathing suit like something from a black and white Hollywood movie and a ridiculously floppy straw hat with an equally ridiculous and extravagant ribbon that both of them duck their heads under—skin pressed against skin, his nose against the ember-red hair at the nape of her neck. It’s the summer after seventh year. They’re out of school with the ocean before them and sand under their feet. And here’s the best part—the sailboat is just big enough to accommodate them both, which means there’s only a very small possibility one of his best mates is lurking under the tarpaulin, waiting for the perfect moment to leap up and say boo.

 

Do you want to do this the muggle way, James asks when they get to where the waves wash up against the beach. Lily steps into the water and shrieks, it’s cold, it’s cold, and flings herself into his arms and they both fall into the ocean and there’s a lot of scrambling limbs and at some point one of them has the bright idea of lobbing a great handful of wet sand at the other and this continues until both of them are soaked and covered with so many grains of sand and gasping for breath. I surrender, Lily chokes out as she wades over to where their wands are floating in the current and tucks them into the ribbon of her hat. You started it, James accuses and they’re nearly at it again when both of them double over with laughter and have to splash over so they can grab onto something to keep them upright, sand peppered fingers grating over skin, the both of them shivering from cold and mirth.

 

Do you want to do this the muggle way, James asks again and Lily beams like he’s offering her the moon and stars and says, yes, I do. They leave the wands in Lily’s hat and push the sailboat into the waves and peel back the tarpaulin clumsily and climb on, dripping ocean over every surface.

 

Merlin, I hope you know how to do this, James says. He holds the fabric of the sail quizzically and Lily leans over and drips on him until he swats at her and she ducks and the boat tips dangerously. Maybe this is a sign of how right this is because he wouldn’t mind tipping over as long as Lily’s there to guide his hands until they run over intricate knots and hoist the white sail up high and proud.

 

* * *

 

 

James knows she isn’t a selkie and he has no idea what ocean-dust is but the song comes to mind, and it’s not just due to the tremulous voices of the flowers tied ‘round Lily’s wrist. But dust is gritty, like sand, and at midday nothing is swell anymore. Not the sail, which hangs limp in the absence of wind. Not their finger sandwiches, which Lily smuggled on board in the space under the loose floorboard, and, well, they sort of tasted like the loose floorboard. And not Lily, whose skin is peeling and pink where the shadow of her hat isn’t and whose cream bathing suit brings out the rawness of her knees and elbows and the tops of her breasts.

 

You have horrible ideas and I don’t know why I ever listen to you, she says, unsmiling. When he only stares off into the horizon sulkily, she continues with, you’re still an arrogant toerag and Merlin, if you mess up that mop of yours again I will throw you overboard for the sharks. So James takes his hands out of his hair and resumes his sulking and desperately wishes for one of them to give in and cast a spell to take them back to shore.

 

(They should have stayed in that cave. It was nice. When you find nice things that require very little effort on your part to make them nice, you should take them as they come.)

 

Lily rips the flowers from her wrist and throws them with all her might but they drift daintily through the air all the same, landing on the ocean surface with a miniscule ripples. Like snow. The water pulls them apart. She buries her face in her hands. James watches and says, we’re pants at this and the wind’s never going to pick back up and Lily nods and peers at him through the cracks of her fingers.

 

They’re tiny, the singing flowers. Diamond shaped petals, four of them, around a slightly green center. They grow in bunches and when they’re all together on the bush in his backyard, they sound like a choir. Though it’s hard to explain, James thinks, because their voices aren’t human—they sound like flowers. He’d bet anything that even muggles would know them for what they are. This is what he’s thinking when he makes scooping motions over the surface of the ocean so the flowers float towards him, still singing. He gathers as many as he can and arranges them around the pole that boasts the sail. (It’s limp as a dishrag—hardly boasting.)

 

You know, Lily starts. She hesitates and then lays her head on his shoulders. Under the smell of salt and inefficient sunscreen, she smells like soap. You know, I thought maybe I hadn’t forgotten about this after all, Lily says, maybe I haven’t forgotten how to not be a witch, maybe I remember the time when I couldn’t just wave my wand and charm everything into the right shape. She makes slow gestures with her hands as she speaks. James counts ten, twenty extra freckles along her forearms. Isn’t it great to be able to use magic? James asks. He supposes he doesn’t understand and won’t ever understand. There was never a time when magic wasn’t a part of his life, but that doesn’t mean the humming after-warmth of performing a spell doesn’t still thrill him. He pulls her closer and kisses the ember-red hair at the nape of her neck thinking, these are the remnants of a fire and one day they, too, will fade. She tilts her head back to kiss him under his jaw and says, of course it is, don’t be silly, I just miss things sometimes.

 

They sit in silence in the glare of the sun.

 

Oh, James says, is this about Petunia, because I can talk her around for you, I’m sure she’ll understand. And then Lily’s lips twist into this painful sharp shape and he thinks he’ll reshape the world with moderately legal curses and his fists if he has to, and his neck hurts from the strain of holding her close and looking at her at the same time. His hands are too hot. He’s sure she isn’t comfortable either so he leans back and really looks at her. Flushed cheeks and pink shoulders where the sun bit through her skin. She says, she won’t understand, she’s never held a wand before, once I caught her reaching for mine and I slapped her hand away, oh, I was stupid. He says he’s sure she wasn’t and anyway, a wand is a personal thing but she only shakes her head.

 

The flowers are still singing. Frailly now, so many of them are crumpled.

 

James almost understands what ocean-dust is.

 

Some glittery thing veiled by red eyelashes and the shadow cast by a floppy straw hat with two wands tucked into the outrageous ribbon.

 

Look, James says plainly, she’s a hag. Lily looks and the corners of her lips quirk up and she hits him lightly across the back of his head, the rim of her hat brushing against his cheek. Alright, she says, I’m looking, and you’re probably right, but I’m a right hag to her too, I can’t help it, even if I know I’ll regret it later. She reaches for a flower absentmindedly and misses. Then it’s not your fault, James says and Lily says, like Sev wasn’t my fault, right?

 

More and more recently, James comes to the conclusion that he is a git. He supposes it has a lot to do with age and feels a mixture of satisfaction and nostalgia—the latter of which is a feeling he hopes he will never admit to having even under the influence of Veritaserum.

 

I should have tried harder, Lily says shakily, her face all blotchy, the river in Coketown wasn’t always so bad, I used to go on it with Sev, and we messed around with the leaves and tried to make them fly with magic, Petunia would have never done that, she was just so bitter, he didn’t mean to call me a mudblood, did he, I ignored him all of sixth year and this year, this year he couldn’t even look at me when he thought I was looking back. She looks at the sky and traces invisible constellations with her eyes. Then she continues with, I’m sorry I’m ruining this trip, you’re being perfectly lovely no matter how big of a git you were, I did try to help Petunia, the first thing I did at Hogwarts was ask Dumbledore if she could come, if there could just be one exception, and I don’t regret being a witch—I love being a witch, but magic has its divisions just like anything, you see?

 

And he does. Maybe not the invisible constellations she traces with her gaze, but he remembers pulling Snape from the Whomping Willow, his matchstick limbs flailing. He remembers Snape calling, I know what you and your nasty little friends did, Potter, if only you hadn’t gotten cold feet at the last second, and I’ll remember it. He remembers the letters Sirius burns in fires in sweltering high July, weeks after he ran away. He can’t tell Lily about any of these things so he says, you’re not ruining this trip, I kind of did.

 

She says, but Sev made his choices, right? He’s with that Death Eater lot, he wouldn’t even stop it when I pleaded, and Tuney made her choices, too, she thinks I’m a freak, and I made my choice the first time I admitted she wasn’t worth it, isn’t that horrible? We all make these choices that bring us apart, and it’s permanent—you can’t choose to be something and switch over to being someone else.

 

He’s thinking he isn’t sure if he loves her yet but he wants to have her around almost all of the time and that has to count for something. For better or worse, he says in airs of mock-flippancy, we’re both here, and tucks her baby hairs behind the shell of her ear—you can hear the ocean in conches. James wonders if the echoes hide in the lining of her ears.

 

For better or worse, Lily repeats solemnly.

 

* * *

 

The wind never does pick up again. There are breezes from time to time, teasing at the sail. They talk of earnest nonsense until the constellations Lily knows by heart fill up the sky. Look, Lily says, pointing at the water. James sees the stars reflected in its depths. (No, that’s phosphorous, Lily says.) When they remember the wands tucked into the ribbon, they both have empty stomachs and tread between the edges of laughter. So they charm the sail full of wind. As the ship drifts to shore, the last of the flowers begins to sing. 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This was written because a nerd named Geta made me do a thing where you shuffle your iPod and use what comes up to write a drabble. Clearly I went overboard, but I think I should be excused because…well, face it, it’s Jily. The song I got was “Oceandust by Hands like Houses.”


End file.
